Not seeking growth is a perfectly valid strategy

The other day, I ran into a Mastodon discussion about open source software and how blaming your userbase isn't a great strategy for growth. Scott Jenson made a comment (emphasis mine): I like this post from Ian Coldwater. Slagging off users isn't a growth strategy. Now, you may not want growth, perfectly fine, but this is specifically calling out apps that want mainstream consumers and what sparked me to write this blog post was this comment by Drew Mochak: "I don't want growth" is such a wacky, fediverse-only take I'm not sure I agree with the "fediverse-only" jab but given that it would be true, that would make me much happier about being part of Fediverse because not wanting growth is a perfectly valid strategy and I want to tell you why. In another reply down the thread he said this (emphasis mine): I find it really strange to pre-suppose that a thing will only appeal to a certain group and to not see this as a failure mode. The truth is no one knows how people will react to…